4.3.10

Where's the pro-America crowd who backed Goldman on his case? Why is an American judge so eager to sell out an American mother? Maybe, it's because it's a mom? Mom claims she was coerced into the custody agreement and that Dad was physically and emotionally abusive. She also fears for the boy's safety.

DENVER — A judge, acting in an international child abduction case, has ordered a Pueblo mother to return her 7 1/2-year-old son to his father in France.

The mother, Amanda Minarik, had refused to return the boy to Paris on Jan. 3, as scheduled at the end of a visit during Christmastime.

The father, Francois Salinier, invoked a treaty on child abduction to seek a court order compelling Minarik to return the boy. A 2006 child custody agreement specifies the boy is to live with his father in France.

Chief U.S. District Judge Wiley Daniel, in a 21-page decision on Monday, ordered Minarik to return the boy no later than Sunday.

In three days of court hearings last week, Minarik's attorney, Joseph Antolinez, assured the judge that she would comply, if that turned out to be Daniel's decision. The treaty requires children who have been removed from their lawful custody to be returned unless there is good reason to the contrary.

The judge rejected Minarik's contention that her son would be subject to a grave risk of physical or psychological harm by being returned to Paris. Daniel also rejected her contention that her ex-husband coerced her into the custody agreement.

Minarik and Salinier lived in Pueblo and Colorado Springs after the their son was born in 2002, but they moved to France in mid-2004. She moved back to Pueblo in early 2006 and they were divorced in France.

The judge said he was unable to determine whether either Minarik or Salinier was telling the truth about her claims, which Salinier denied, that he physically and emotionally abused her.

In her testimony last week, Minarik conceded she thinks he is the boy's father. In a Jan. 3 e-mail to Salinier, she said he might not be the father.

Daniel stated the boy testified he would prefer to live in France with his half-sister, an 11-year-old daughter of Minarik, from an earlier relationship. The daughter lives in Pueblo with her mother. She is not part of the custody case.